My buddy texted me this morning to ask what Game 6 looked like through the eyes of a St. Louis Cardinals fan last night, and it took me about 3 hours to respond. I’ve never seen anything so remarkable, so bipolar, so… baseball, in all my life. One second I’m on a stool, rope wrapped tightly around my neck, just waiting for Matt Holliday to kick the legs out. The next I’m screaming for Jon Jay to haul his unkempt afro to home plate. It was way too stressful for a guy with a long family history of high blood pressure, but it was amazing nonetheless.
There are three types of sports fans – the kind that love baseball (like Brandon and I do), the kind that don’t have a problem with baseball but don’t love it enough to watch a game that they don’t have a horse in, and the kind that think baseball sucks. That third kind usually still owns a New York Yankees hat. I don’t think there’s a way in this world that anyone didn’t think last night’s Game 6 between the Cardinals and the Texas Rangers wasn’t the most incredible game they’ve ever witnessed. And we thought it couldn’t get better than the last game of the regular season.
The Cardinals won 10-9 in the bottom of the 11th on a walk-off blast by David Freese to dead center. This game featured boneheaded errors, 28 hits in total, and more World Series firsts than I can even list right now. So let’s recap the game in pictures, or at least the parts I can remember.
I’m only mentioning R&B singer Joe because every time I hear his name I think of Hot to Trot when the announcer says, “And bringing up the rear, it’s… Don.”
“Holliday’s hitting 0-for-18 in this series? Someone get my old ass a bat!”
GRRRRRRRRRRRR GRITTIEST CEREMONIAL FIRST PITCH EVER!
Right about this point, I ordered my second shot of the night. I knew it was going to be one of those games.
You have to have faith in your pitcher when his beard is that neatly trimmed.
Are Yankees fans even slightly pissed that Lance Berkman was going to retire after his terrible season last year and now he’s a MVP candidate socking 2-run bombs in the World Series? I’d ask about the well-being of Astros fans but they’ve suffered enough.
“Damn it! I’m never gonna figure this batting thing out.”
“Haha, hey guys look at me! Look at what I can do!”
“Come here, you adorable little pinata!”
Joe Buck: “Tim, you have to respect the kind of errors that a guy like Michael Young can make. They’re just the classiest errors that only a true leader can offer his team.”
“So, does it go like this then?”
“I’m just gonna go ahead and guarantee my MVP trophy now…”
Fact: Narcolepsy affects more than 30% of Major League third basemen each year.
“I am very disappointed in your selection of balls and strikes.”
“And she said, ‘Just try it once and see if you like it’ and now I can’t get enough of the sh*t.”
Made me instantly think of this…
“Wait, which one of us is pitching?”
“Now you do the same thing, but hit the ever loving tits off of it!”
“I do good, Mikey?”
“FOR ISRAEL!”
“Excuse me, but I mustache to home plate!”
“I AM CONTRIBUTING!”
“I’m not.”
“Get me Rzcep… Zrep… Czrep… Dotel.”
Joe Buck: “Could this be Albert Pujols’ last 9th inning double in a St. Louis Cardinals uniform?”
“Yes, yes, yes…”
“No, no, no…”
LOL O RLY?
“So inside fastball to Josh Hamilton… that’s a bad idea.”
“All right, NOW it’s over!”
Aw, poor Nyjer Morgan.

No Yankees fans aren’t pissed. The Yankees held a $15 million option on him, an option no team in their right mind would’ve exercised. When the Cardinals signed him for $8 million, I thought it was batshit insane. It still is. They should have been able to grab him for half that.

And handing him $12 million for next year when they have that teeny tiny free agent issue with whatever that guy’s name is might eventually become a bother.

Not enough people talk about why the Cardinals signed Berkman to play right field in the first place. Pujols told them to sign him. Pujols has two best friends in baseball – Yadier Molina and Lance Berkman. He said, “Hey you know who we should get to play right field? Lance Berkman.” And Mozeliak was like, “For reals? OK.”

The idea of re-signing Pujols is far more complicated than just writing a contract that includes $30 million per season, because that won’t come from St. Louis. Instead, the fiscally responsible Cardinals are doing it a different way – they signed Berkman to another year, they locked up Carpenter and Garcia, they exercised the two options on Wainright, and I guarantee that as soon as this World Series is over, they will lock up Molina for many years. Once that is all done, and especially if they win tonight, the idea of “that teeny tiny free agent issue won’t matter, because at $22.5-25 a year for 9 years with a 10th year option and an unprecedented 5% ownership stake, no team will stand a chance.

But that’s all stuff that people don’t like to talk about because it’s a lot easier to say, “Theo Epstein’s gonna give Pujols a blank check!”

Also, my point about the Yankees and Berkman was that I’d be pissed if he threw up the crap numbers he did and then went somewhere else and was a monster like this season. Had nothing to do with options and extra money, just the idea that if he had performed like this last season, the Yankees would probably have one more banner.

I don’t fully understand baseball. It’s very stat heavy and constant breaks in the game annoy me. However, I like to watch the playoffs.

My wife and kids are away for a few days and I didn’t have to work today, so I stayed up until half three this morning watching the game live before I had to go to bed. Watched the rest of the game this morning and wow, the Rangers choked it away.

Are the Cardinals the favourites to win tonight? Or have they shot their load?